Are these for this year? I think bareroot season is over. This computer isn't tagging, so hopefully @Lilyfinch z9a Murrieta Ca or @Kenneth zone 7A - Southern Middle TN or @subk will see this post and respond.

My exact thoughts ^^^

Yup, not looking for bareroot for this year. Considering potted plants for this fall though.

The most low maintenance rose I've ever grew is Belinda's Dream. Not much on fragrance, but blooms constantly. It might get a few spots, but doesn't have to be sprayed. I have one that survived a repeated assassination by mower attempt, then a mid summer move across 5 states.

Good suggestion. It is a fragrant rose for me, however I seem to pic up scents strongly that others miss. Such is the case with Pink Pet which has a strong wafting clove scent. Perhaps it's just my soil as others have also smelled it in my garden. Just a note, reminding myself that Kenneth does spray regularly while I'm not sure about Lilyfinch (I'm thinking not) and subk.

Thanks for the recommendation. Belinda's Dream is pretty, though the description says the scent is fruity so I'm not sure if she will be up for that. It also sounds like it gets pretty large and has to be planted 7 feet away from other bushes? That might not work since she will want a few bushes together and I don't know exactly how much space she has. Regardless, I will recommend it to her.

Any other recommendations that I can pass along?

And any recommendations on good sources for buying potted plants for fall planting?

Here is a discussion I started recently on a similar subject that may help:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5925789/lilyfinch-or-others-with-experience-in-tn

I have Belinda's dream and unfortunately she is not fragrant for me. Lovely blooms though. mine did not get large at all.

To be clear: when I posted “my exact thoughts”, I was referring to Vaporvac’s mentioning of Lilyfinch, Kenneth and subk for recs.

Hi there,

I am in northwest alabama which has the same disease pressure than TN. Lilyfinch if you see this I want you to know I miss you so much being in TN so I could learn from you! I am very happy to get to see your Cali garden tho 😀

back to the OP Keneth is growing all kinds of amazing roses in your area also so I hope he chimes in. Here in my garden few roses would meet the requirements you want. A lot of the Kordes are very blackspot resistant and can be grown without spray but they get at least 5-6 feet tall . The david Austins have to right scent and bloom shape but very few can be grown without spray in this humidity. Also some of the newer david austins will be great in scent and without spray but they are in the yellow color range. If they end up liking other colors besides pink and red please check out Emily Brontë and Roald Dahl, they would be very healthy and Emily is very scented.

here is what I have that could work for a low maintenance fragrant garden in TN.

Earth angel by Kordes - super strong scent but kind of citrusy

First crush by Kordes- super strong scent but also citrusy/fruity

Olivia Austin

beverly by Kordes

Bordeaux cityscape by Kordes -mild fragrance here, but I heard it should get stronger

Princess Charlene de Monaco- wants to be tall but narrow so it should fit along a walkway.

Thanks everyone for your speedy and helpful responses!

Rekha- I did see that thread (and it was what convinced me to look at non-DA roses for her) but many of the roses listed are apricot colored and light fragrance so I was hoping to get some more recommendations for my mom's preference- pink or red and strong old rose and tea fragrances.

Dianela- thanks, I will check those out.

I can recommend the larger bushes to her too, I just don't know how much space she plans to devote to them.

Dianela, does earth angel ball? I love the look but am afraid of Rose's that ball in my weather.

Boscobel stays small and blooms are lovely

Rekha she does ball when it rains a lot. Otherwise in normal 90% humidity without actual constant water it does not. We just had 3 days of rains here and two baby plants from Palatine have open blooms.

this one was sent to me this year to replace my pompon veranda that was not available. We just got over an inch of water in the past 3 days but it has been warm. The issue seems to be when the temps are cool.

Rekha , that is amazing to me that your belindas dream is not fragrant ! Wow . It perfumes the area around where I have mine , even in dry cal .

I had belindas dream in Tennessee at least 3 years and it was not too big. I found it did well with a hard pruning in the spring , made quite a lovely shrub .

Olivia is wonderful, will tick all the boxes except maybe strong scent . It has a very nice scent , but mine is not strong . Is yours dianela ?

If you wanted to order, sweet frances was heathy for me, has a lovely scent . It comes from antique rose emporium.

A new intro showing amazing fragrance but I can’t answer the rest , is scentuous.

I need to look through my photos of my old garden but these are the ones popping out in my mind . I’ll be back with pics when my baby goes to bed . :)

Lily for some reason I find Olivia very fragrant and at the same time I am not able to smell other roses that are supposed to have a stronger fragrance.

Check out the Texas A&M website for EARTHKIND ROSES We have enough variation in Texas to meet your TN specs. The university did research to meet your exact limitations of care and their general information and suggestions seemed perfect to meet your needs. Reality is that roses require “hands-on” care. The reading you are doing and the pictures you are looking at did not come about without effort and knowledge. Many, like your mother, love roses but cannot care for them as they normally require to give beauty - this is why Earthkind Roses was developed. Also I suggest you put the easy care qualities ahead of color and fragrance, we all want her success. Nothing uglier than an half dead rose bush, plus they bite (thorns)
FYI: Belindas Dream is fool proof. The space requirements you listed are crazy and incorrect. I had a client put one on a hillside at her country house outside Austin and it got no care beyond water. The maintenance man clipped it back with electric hedge shears when he trimmed the other shrubs. It was continually covered in fat beautiful fragrant roses and she always had some in the house because they have a long vase life. Your mother will love this rose and my bet is it will become her favorite. Now 2102, every rose will have some disease & insect issues, the key is how does the plant fight it off. Roses are like people with their wide range of characteristics, vulnerabilities, and stamina to handle life. Note: How or even if our receptors pick up fragrance is apparently unique to each us; add to that the age of plant and growing conditions so I find the descriptions are generalizations at best.

Clarification: EARTHKIND ROSES is not a brand. It is a rating system for existing roses that was developed by A&M’s research department looking at varieties of roses growing throughout our state.

I'm in Middle Tn just south of Nashville I do not spray for BS but will occasionally spray some for bugs--make SURE you know if someone giving you recommendations sprays, it makes a tremendous different on success! The following three are not sprayed for anything:

Mother of Pearl (Meilland) Peach/pink. This is hands down the best rose I grow. It has at least 3 if not 4 major flushes a summer. It's later flushes still out perform some of my roses' first flush. I will never be with out this rose. I have two of them. I can't pick up much scent.

Oliva Austin (David Austin) Light Pink. Fabulous rose, completely clean, beautiful growth structure, truly an outstanding rose. This is my second year with this rose and I am planning to get another one to replace an already good rose that is in a high traffic area because this is the type of rose you just can't have too many of. It does have a nice grandmotherly scent. (I have a terrible nose so if I can smell it...)

Zaide (Kordes) Medium Pink. My best Kordes, which is saying something! Another a rose I have two of. Very clean and generous. Also has a scent but probably not too strong.

If you wanted to branch out with more color variety I can also recommend Winter Sun for yellow and Sonnewelt for darker peach. Not as generous bloomers but nice looking clean plants between flushes.

If you had a blank corner with 6 feet of space then Flamenco/Ivor's Rose is a big shrub that has dark bright pink roses and always has blooms.

I highly recommend looking at bare roots from Palentine. They graft onto multiflora root stock which does really well here. They also send exceptional plants that will perform in their first year.

Here are the first three this year.

Mother of Pearl:

Oliva Austin:

Zaide:

Here's Mother of Pearl in August. AUGUST! August in Md Tn is hot and nasty and roses take a blooming break and BS has kicked up and generally every thing looks a little desperate for some relief. (And this picture shows a better spring pruning job!) This is why I love this rose.

All three of these plants have been randomly available at local box stores--but it is impossible to know what they will have and when. I know I recommended bare roots/mail order, but that's really the only way to get specific roses that you want around here unless you are willing to haunt Lowes and HD. Can you tell us where your parents are--without really tell us where they are? I'd be happy to include some plants for them in my order for early next spring if they are at all near me. I promise I'm not creepy. Lilyfinch will vouch. ;-)

Thanks Austin, that is really helpful. I will look into the rating system and see what I can find. And good to know that the size requirements I saw listed for Belinda's Dream are way out of whack!

Subk3- that's a really good point. I should have specified in my original post that I am looking for low maintenance plants. I'm going to give her instructions on fertilizing twice a year, deadheading and regular watering. I expect that my brother or I will handle the pruning whenever we are home at the right time. And your roses are beautiful!

By the way, what is the right time for pruning in middle TN?

Thanks for the generous offer Subk3. I've ordered some bare root roses for myself for next spring, but I worry that will be too much for my parents to handle since I don't know how much advance notice they will get that they are arriving and I don't know how quickly they can get them into the ground since they're relying on help for that. That's why I was hoping to order some roses already potted up so they can stay that way for a couple of weeks if necessary.

Anyway, I've given my mom the list I've compiled so far and she seems happy with it. She just has to decide which ones she wants, and I'll come back and do research on those here to help narrow down the list to the most low maintenance ones.

Now my aunt in KY wants a similar list:) so I'll likely do another post in a few days. She's in zone 6a. She had an amazing huge bush that just died on her a couple of years ago, so she's finally looking to replace it but doesn't know where to begin.

Cant beat recommendations from a knowledgable rose grower in your own area. The recs above sound perfect. Great pictures of those new roses.

Are your parents IN the Nashville Basin (soils are either riverfill or developed on Limestones, etc.) or are they up on the plateau, with either sands/silts or heavy clays?

There are also temperature/zone differences between the two close together, but oh so different areas.

sd, we prune here "when the forsythia blooms" which is usually late Feb early Mar.

When you order bare roots you tell them when you want them to arrive and then they send you a heads up when they are shipped out. While it is "best" to get them in the ground quickly, I think mine hung out for about 10 days this year before I got them all planted with no harm done. I find the actual planting of the bare roots much easier than planting leafed out plants that have tender shoots and roots to protect. I really wouldn't shy away from them for being more difficult to manage. I avoided them for years thinking they would be harder and now it's my most preferred way to plant.

I also would avoid planting in the summer here it's just too hot and it seems we always have a dry spell late summer early fall. I have planted in the fall (and still regularly do so with perennials) but have not had success doing so with roses the couple times I tried it. But I'm not so good with being diligent with the hose. I'm also a bit rural and open so winter can be harder on a new plant than the 7a I'm suppose to be. So if you do plant in the fall make sure it's more protected than my house with an open field bringing in the winds and you water, water, water.

Stillann- they are in Rutherford County so they're actually in the Nashville Basin.

Thanks subk3- what did you do with them for those 10 days? My nursery potted up the bare root David Austins they received into nursery pots and I found that really helpful since it gave us time to get everything sorted in our yard. Maybe I could suggest that to them if they can't get them planted immediately.

sd you can leave the bareroots soaking in a container. This year due to concerns with some ancient mariners David austin sent me I left them soaking for over 2 weeks. I planted them and they are blooming beautifully so no issues.

Thanks everyone, this has been incredibly helpful!

My Mom told me she liked the smell, and I thought she was nuts. lol I can't smell anything. I just assumed it must not have a fragrance. I wonder why I can't detect it? Weird. Now I'm going to be checking at different times.

Is the Texas climate similar to Tennessee? Remember that rose disease resistance is climate specific.

Just to offer an example, Belinda's Dream which does so wonderfully well in Texas, and apparently many other areas, was a martyr to powdery mildew in my Silicon Valley garden. I realize that powdery mildew is not a serious disease everywhere, but Belinda's Dream was a royal mess here. I ended up taking them out, a row of 8 plants. It was a sad day, and as you can probably tell, I still think about it.

Most of Texas is hotter than Middle Tennessee, but the humidity and the black spot pressure might be similar. The difference is especially significant when selecting roses for cold hardiness. Even though I'm technically 7a I don't have much success with some of the heat loving roses like old fashioned teas, chinas and noisettes, although I do know people in town north of me (Nashville) that get enough heat island effect to grow those roses. Unfortunately, we seem to get a really harsh winter every 10 years or so--temps dipping below zero--that's fatal for those roses even protected. So when I look at information about roses in Texas if it's rated to zone 6 and good on heat, humidity and disease it will often do well here.

On Belinda's Dream, she's a 7a rose. So technically should grow here, but I've had two of them that never did very well and had this continuous, slow cane death thing happening in the spring--likely from cold damage. After a few years there's just nothing left of her. So like the antique teas if you are in a protected enough area, maybe with some heat island effect she's great--but not a slam dunk here for me. (Again I'm in a more rural setting with acreage and un-impeded winter wind.)

subk this has been a mystery to me for a while. I've seen other people say BD shouldn't grow in colder zones, but I can't see why. Were they grafted? The spring I cut mine to the ground, not only did they grow back, but they outgrew and outbloomed everything else. Could there be two roses going by that name? I have plenty of roses that grow backwards after winter, and I'm definitely no expert in keeping anything alive, beyond some alfalfa and fish fertilizer. I have two rose conspiracies. My top one is the BD zone mystery. lol

An interesting discussion on Belinda’s Dream. I think her main claim to fame is that she is Earthkind, but that designation was developed in Texas, so it probably concerns mostly with black spot resistance. Even though there are some trials outside of Texas, hardiness and other diseases weren’t big considerations with EarthKind. More accurately she is ‘Southern US Kind’, not Earthkind . I’ve heard Knock-Out is also not so good on the West Coast,. Rosefolly I’m sorry you had to shovel your BDs due to powdery mildew. I will say though, I’d very happily trade BD and KO for the 9million other varieties of HT/FL/GR that do far better in Silicon Valley than Texas!

I have never found BD to be especially beautiful or fragrant, but she does bloom a ton with little care...I think she is beautiful and fragrant only when compared to Knock Out!

BD in my garden. Like said on Clueless, she’s a Monet, beautiful from a distance and less pretty close-up, lol.

Why hasn’t Kenneth responded to this thread? Did Iyanla fix his life by taking away his internet access?